Customers of financial institutions (both individual customers and businesses) typically maintain multiple financial accounts at one or more financial institutions. Financial institutions include, for example, banks, savings and loans, credit unions, mortgage companies, lending companies, and stock brokers. These financial accounts include asset accounts (such as savings accounts, checking accounts, certificates of deposit (CDs), mutual funds, bonds, and equities) and debt accounts (such as credit card accounts, mortgage accounts, home equity loans, overdraft protection, and other types of loans).
In many situations, a user's asset accounts may not be earning the best available interest rate or the user's debt accounts my not be at the most competitive interest rate. It would be to the user's benefit to adjust the funds between different accounts to maximize the interest earned in the asset accounts and/or minimize the interest paid in the debt accounts. For example, a user may have a checking account that pays no interest, but has a high balance. A portion of the funds in the checking account could be transferred to a savings account or other asset account that pays interest on the funds in the account. Similarly, a user with a high credit card balance could save money if a portion of the credit card balance was transferred to a home equity line of credit at a lower interest rate.
Additionally, certain consumers may wish to provide access to one or more individuals, such as financial advisors, who are able to retrieve financial data related to the customer's accounts. Using existing techniques, the customer provides printed account statements to a financial advisor for analysis. However, this information is typically out-of-date by the time it reaches the financial advisor. Existing systems do not provide a timely system for providing financial information to a financial advisor. Further, existing systems do not provide a mechanism for delegating financial authority associated with multiple financial accounts to another individual, such as a financial advisor.
The systems and methods described herein allow a customer to delegate authority to one or more individuals, such as a financial advisor, spouse, accountant, assistant, lawyer, etc. In specific embodiments, the delegation of authority (such as financial authority) is performed via a third party through an Internet web site or other mechanism.